


Little Sister

by Not_You



Series: Culture Shock [3]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Cultural Differences, Culture Shock, M/M, Poverty, Raven-centric, Rituals, Sailing, Sassy Raven, Slavery, Summer Vacation, but in westchester it's indenture, menstrual seclusion
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2017-04-04
Packaged: 2018-04-15 05:14:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 13,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4594176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Raven spends her summer vacation in Genosha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Raven has never been so excited in her entire life, not even when Lady Frost bought Charles and sent her that lovely personal letter to say that he was well. Now they're on the very cusp of their voyage and Irene keeps fussing over the baggage even though everything's fine and Raven feels like she's about to scream.

“Come on, Irene! It's fine!” It's all she can do not to stamp her foot, and having to spit out the lock of her hair that the wind blows directly into her mouth doesn't improve her temper at all.

Irene just smiles, not even looking up. Not that where she looks matters much, since she's blind and everything, but still. “Miss Xavier, you must trust that of all people, I know the true value of preparation.”

“Bleh,” Raven informs her, sticking her tongue out and then pulling it back in because she's nearly fifteen now and should at least try to pretend to be a lady. She misses Father, who was good at making her feel gentle and gracious for real, but that's an old pain indeed, and since Mother is so useless these days and Mr. Marko (not Father, ever) and his son are so profoundly unpleasant that her only real pang about spending the whole summer in Genosha is missing raspberry season.

“Come along, Miss Xavier,” Irene says, straightening up at last, spring sunlight gleaming on her gold collar. For all her dignity she's only eighteen herself, and Raven knows that she wants to get going, too, and leads Raven along the quay as quickly as they can decorously move. Soon they've reached the shipping office. There's still no regular passenger service to Genosha, so Raven is going with a cargo of wheat and salted beef. It's hard to imagine a place where they'll all be exotic together.

Naturally, Irene made sure that the crew is all composed of fine, upstanding professional mercantile sailors with wives and families and references, so the voyage is going to be as boring as travel across the ocean can be, but in her current mood Raven can forgive even that, because after a short conversation with the first mate, who of course hopes that they are comfortable and is honored to have them along, blah blah blah, they are _finally_ boarding the ship. It's a tall-masted, deep-keeled thing, and apparently native boatmen will be taking them in on the shallow waterways from the outer islands. Raven can't wait.

Even with good weather and a respectable crew, the voyage is still pretty interesting. She learns how to tie knots and the cabin boy teaches her how to spit really far and the first mate shows her his tattoos and she gets to go ashore on Madripoor, even if it's awfully hot and sticky and the cooked bugs in the market give her the creeps. Irene of course picks up necessary little things that ladies should have when traveling, and spends the money Mother gave her on a lot of small gifts for the Genoshans. Raven has more money from Mother to give to Charles, and two barrels of the beef will go to General Lensherr, which seems prosaic until she converts it to bluefish in her mind, whereupon the gift becomes quite handsome indeed.

Azazel appears when they're resting at anchor in Madripoor's main harbor, and comes walking up the anchor chain as if it's a perfectly normal thing to do, wearing his usual short black robe and matching trousers. She has seen him several times before, but she's still not used to him. Irene is perfectly calm, of course, and accepts the letter he's carrying and gives him a coin for his trouble. He's really much too important to be running messages, so she gives him gold. He just grins at her and curls up his tail, wishing them both a pleasant journey and vanishing again.

“I can never tell if he means to be impertinent,” Raven says, and Irene just laughs, handing over the letter.

“I think it comes naturally to him. Here, tell me the news.”

Irene always knows if a letter contains good tidings or bad before the recipient opens it, but the blindness of her physical eyes means that she needs Raven to read aloud to her unless it's blindwriting, mysterious patterns of dots pressed into thick paper. This stuff is thin and unbleached, and Raven unrolls it carefully, smiling at the sight of Charles's perfect penmanship before beginning to read it to Irene. Charles is well and of course hopes that they are the same, and he's missing General Lensherr who's touring mountain villages again, but hopes to have him back soon. It really is like something out of a romance, and she's glad that they seem to be getting along even after enough time for General Lensherr to discover all of Charles's bad habits. 

He also says that the three ladies who left their husband are all right, and that the pregnant one has had her baby and that both of them recovering well. Finally, Charles lets her know that her little hut is nearly built. She had thought that staying with the servants while not doing any work might be awkward, and that she would be among strangers enough in the central compound without staying in one with no one she knows at all. Besides, she likes the idea of essentially living in a playhouse all summer. 

Irene chuckles when she says so. “Won't it be made of palm fronds?”

“Mostly, Charles says,” Raven says, tucking the letter away again so she can lean over the rail and gaze at the green and white of Madripoor's mountains, happier than she can say.


	2. Chapter 2

Despite the best efforts of the crew, Raven is deeply bored by the time they finally reach the outer islands, and it just gets hotter and hotter until Raven is wearing nothing but a shift and drawers. Even the collective removal of shirts to row through the doldrums had only been about three days of entertainment. It's mercilessly hot out, and Irene slathers her in lotion every day. Her natural blue skin doesn't burn, but of course she can't be seen like that as Miss Xavier. She kind of hopes she'll be able to get away with it in Genosha. Azazel never looks like anything bothers him, and Charles's letters are full of casual descriptions of terribly maimed people and of those with very strange-looking gifts.

Irene of course won't tell Raven anything about how Genosha will actually be, even though it's getting close enough that she must know something. Most seers are like that, and Raven just hangs over the railing in the heat, watching for clouds. The first few are a profound relief, and they get thicker and thicker, not thunderous but soft grey.

It's just Raven's luck that the islands are covered in fog when she arrives. It's so thick that even Irene is affected, sounds echoing very differently with so much water in the air. The men carry on, of course, all experienced sailors. They go slowly and hang a red lantern from the stern and a deep blue one from the bow. Red apparently just means you're about to run into a boat, while the blue is what the Westchester mercantile fleets have agreed to use to identify themselves when their flags can't be seen. They slow and slow until Raven could swim faster, and then there's a red glow and a loud voice in the fog calling something over and over in what is probably the Fharra tongue, from what Charles has written. The lookout blows a harbor whistle in response, and soon the men are casting the anchor and Irene is fussing with the luggage one more time. Raven pulls her oilskin tighter, actually a little chilled for almost the first time since before Madripoor.

“Miss Xavier?” A feminine voice says after everything has been lowered over the side and out of sight.

“Yes?” Raven asks, squinting and then shapeshifting stronger eyes because no one can see them anyway. It's still hard to see through the fog, but now she can walk to the womanly silhouette standing at the railing, Irene one step behind with the case holding the most important of Raven's things and a clear lantern in her free hand.

“I am Kalan,” she says in strongly-accented but perfect western, emphasis on the second ah sound in the name, “and I shall be your hostess while my father conducts you to the big island.” She hands over a letter from Charles and waits for Raven to examine it and her, apparently taking no offense at a young girl's caution. The letter describes Kalan Brightring as tall and slender, with very gold skin and big grey eyes, a very strange color among native Genoshans. It also tells her that Kalan will be wearing the Brightring jewelry, and while Raven can't be completely positive about the dizzying pattern, the pearls are mostly a deep, chocolate brown, a color no other family wears in quite so much profusion. She tucks the letter away and offers Kalan her hand. They would curtsey to one another in Westchester, but apparently in Genosha women do most of the trading and have learned the handshake from Westchester men.

Kalan clasps Raven's hand with her own elegant, long fingered one and then leads them over the railing and down the rope ladder, calling something in Fharra that makes the dim man-shapes in her lower, wider boat all turn their heads away until Irene has handed the case down to Kalan and all three are safely aboard. Once Irene is seated on the high stern with Raven tucked between her and Kalan, the men look around again and take up their oars as Raven calls her thanks to the crew and they all wish her well as dim green lights approach them, actual trade boats there to buy all the rest of the beef. Her two barrels are somewhere in the center of this boat, but she can't see them for almost the next hour, even with modified eyes. 

The only sound is the nearly-absent splash of skilled rowing and the lapping of water on the hull and man at the bow by their own green lantern, calling something again and again in Fharra, with a clear voice like a good town crier. There are other lights and voices in the fog, and no one speaks for fear of interrupting them or adding to the muffling effects of the fog. At long last it begins to clear, and she can see shimmering blue water and greener than green islands. Raven had been able to feel how wide and low the boat is, but now she can see the goods piled in the center of the deck, and the crew at the edges. They're all covered in complicated black tattoos, and Kalan reveals herself to be decorated in the same way as everyone takes off their cloaks. She also reveals a whole lot more than that, and Raven can't help being shocked even though Charles has warned her that Genoshan women go bare-breasted and that the Fharra wear nothing but skimpy drawers and jewelry. Kalan just smiles at her, and stretching her arms over her head, brown nipples thrusting proudly up into the sun.

“How do you like the islands now that you can see them?” she asks, and Raven manages to stammer something about how beautiful they are.


	3. Chapter 3

Apparently it can take larger vessels almost a week to reach the main island, but on a Fharra family boat it's much faster. They skim along the waves, weaving in and out of traffic in a way that would scare Raven if Irene weren't so calm. Now that the sun is out, Kalan can point out her father, who has iron grey in his long braids but wields his oar as stoutly as any of the others. As in most galleys the men takes breaks, and when his comes he stands and carefully walks back to them. It's very distracting to see a muscular, grown man with battle scars in nothing but a twist of dull red rag edged with brown seed pearls, but he bows to her and speaks softly in Fharra, glancing over at Irene to bring her into it.

“Father says that he hopes you're comfortable, and is honored to have you aboard.”

“Tell him thank you,” Raven says, smiling at Mr. Brightring, “and that we appreciate his hospitality and protection.”

Kalan translates, and her father sits at her feet and lets her pass him a gourd of fresh water from the covered barrel behind their seat. The men row on and on, and Raven would be intolerably bored if not for the other boats and the small islands going by. They don't even stop for lunch, Kalan just climbs into the pile of goods and somehow creates a small space to cook in, using coals in a turtle shell full of sand. She puts a small metal grill on top of it and roasts tiny, whole eels of a kind of Raven has never seen, as well as a slab of salted bluefish and fistfuls of seaweed from a clay jar. She cuts and tears the meat and slices the seaweed as it crisps and the end result is served on little squares of wood, with a pointed stick to spear individual pieces. Raven describes their colors to Irene, who can investigate texture and flavor on her own. The seaweed is more familiar to Raven than it would have been before their voyage, but this has been marinated in some Genoshan spice that makes it flavorful and almost too hot. The eels are sweeter than the Westchester ones, but taste very similar, and of course the bluefish is delicious. 

Everyone drinks water from the barrel, and the men eat quickly in turns, Mr. Brightring first and then the less senior members of the crew until everyone has been fed and has dipped his dishes into the sea before returning them to Kalan and thanking her politely. Irene brings Raven's dish with her own and Kalan rinses them because the stern seat is too high to reach the water. After she gets everything tucked away, she comes to join them again, and thanks Raven prettily for her compliments on the texture of the eel.

“Are you enjoying the Westchester ones?” Raven asks, knowing that her country has sent at least one ship full of the things, salted down in barrels like the beef.

“They are very good,” Kalan says. “We can't believe anything that size is so sweet! The large eels here taste like mud, and we had to eat far too many of them when the slavers were here.”

Raven sighs. “It's still so strange to me, the cruelty of slavery here.”

“Believe me, none of them looked at us like you look at Irene. Without her collar I would think she was your older sister.”

Irene smiles, and Raven can feel herself blushing. “Really, she might as well be. According to Charles, our slavery is your adoption.” Really, Raven would rather not be part of her family, but school keeps her away from them most of the time, and soon she'll be old enough to marry and buy girls like herself and look after them.

“It seems like it,” Kalan says, nodding. “When a Fharra man takes in girls who have no parents to take care of them, he gives them special necklaces so his visiting friends and relatives will know that they are not his blood and have different marriage rules and clan alliances, but otherwise they are his daughters forevermore and if he abandons them he is considered even worse than a blood father committing the same crime, because he chose them, where birth is an accident.”

Raven nods. “Terrible things happen to people who are found to be abusing slaves in Westchester. The things Charles has told me about...” she sighs. “If anyone in Westchester even tried to keep a slave who wanted to be resold, they would have to pay a huge fine and the money from the sale would go to the lord. If someone actually maimed a slave so they couldn't run away, we would hang them.”

Kalan nods. “There is a reason that we're not trying to buy Irene from you. Your brother has assured us that your kindness to her is as great as Lady Frost's to him.”

Raven blushes. “Well, I try.”

“Besides, that's the kind of pretty collar a woman might give her husband in the islands. Nziola men don't wear as much jewelry,” she adds.

“Thank you, Miss Brightring,” Irene says, “my fingertips can see that I have a beautiful collar indeed. And thank you, Miss Xavier, for your kindness to me.”

She talks so prettily to strangers that Raven feels privileged to know she can be sassy, even if it's embarrassing to be thanked. “Don't be silly, Irene,” she says, and squeezes her hand. Irene squeezes back.

They keep the same quick pace all day, and Raven watches Fharra men, women, and children in other boats, and sees giant swimming lizards and enormous blue butterflies and flocks of tiny birds with emerald-green feathers and ruby-red crests. Kalan patiently answers her questions, and points out a group of black and white monkeys in the trees of an island so small that it hardly counts.


	4. Chapter 4

Even after night falls the men keep rowing. Raven is tired and hungry and more than a bit sore from the hard seat, but tries to be as pleasant as she can. The promise of dinner helps a lot, and watching Kalan cook is interesting as she crouches by the turtle shell again, barely visible in the red light of the coals. It's some kind of red meat on skewers this time, with different seaweed. This stuff seems like it would be golden in the light, and is shaped almost like a bunch of grapes. Raven devours her share and then disgraces herself in her bid to be a real grown-up lady by falling asleep on Irene's shoulder like a child.

Sometime later, when the sky is still dark and full of unfamiliar constellations, they stop at one of the myriad islands. The bump of the prow against a sandy beach wakes Raven up, and Irene helps her wobble her way up from the seat and around the empty galley to step off into the sand. She sinks a little but doesn't stumble, and Kalan leads the way to her mother's house. Mr. Brightring has three wives, and each has her own house, in the Genoshan way. It would be much too expensive with Westchester buildings, but here there's no cold for a house to keep out, so Mrs. Xaan Brightring lives in a circular sort of hutch, on stilts like the other houses. The island is very small, so Raven supposes the stilts are to keep the houses above high tide, and Kalan says that she's right. They climb a rope ladder to the door, and Mrs. Brightring greets them with a wide smile, the round room dimly lit by a red lantern. She looks a lot like her daughter, and the resemblance continues in the four little ones sleeping along the edge of the room in a cuddly little pile, and Mrs. Brightring laughs softly when Raven says that they're beautiful.

“Thank you for your kind words, Miss Xavier,” she says. “Do you need to eat again before bed?” There's some kind of soup simmering over another turtle shell, and Raven is so curious to try that she accepts a small bowl and tries not to yawn too much. It has a strange and delicious taste, like fish but not quite, and Mrs. Brightring tells Irene all about how to make turtle soup.

“I thought hunting was illegal,” Raven says, yawning behind her hand. Irene rescues her bowl before she can drop it, though it's more wood and probably wouldn't break.

“It is,” Mrs. Brightring says, “but fishing isn't, and these turtles spend so much time in the water that they come in under the law.”

“Oh, I see,” Raven says, and yawns again. “Are you the reason Miss Brightring speaks such nice western?”

“I am. My family was one of the first to trade with the westerners, and one of my sisters was born to a slaver and his wife who didn't want her, so it was her first language.”

“I see,” Raven says. “I'm glad you family took care of her.”

She smiles. “Thank you, Miss Xavier. And now you should get some sleep.” She unrolls some heavy blankets and soon there are two big pallets on the floor beside the children. Raven takes off her dress and crawls into one in her shift, Irene joining her as soon as their outer clothing is neatly folded. Just as she's drifting off Raven realizes she doesn't know where the baggage is, and whispers as much to Irene.

“Don't worry, Miss Raven,” she says softly, using the childhood title so close to sleep, “it's still onboard. They hauled the boat well in and tied an oilcloth over it.”

“And our mean billy goat is out there,” Kalan adds with a yawn. “He'll bite anything that tries to bother it and make so much noise that all the men will come.”

Raven giggles, and goes to sleep tucked in against Irene's side, where she dreams of Westchester in winter. It's odd to jerk out of that dream early in the morning and to find herself on the floor of a Fharra house, but there's more soup and a skewer of seaweed and gourd chunks for her to eat. She's still finishing the skewer when they leave, which is probably why the Fharra cook things this way. It's easy to take with her, and Mrs. Brightring gives her a piece of sugar cane to chew when she's done. Raven thanks her politely, and then loads into the boat as one of the boys holds onto the mean goat. They're off before dawn is more than a glow on the horizon, and Raven dozes off again after breakfast, waking up in the glaring sun to chew on her cane and look around. The juice is deliciously sweet and relatively cool, and halfway through she gives the unchewed end to Irene, who thanks her prettily and takes such obvious, childlike enjoyment in it that Raven makes a silent vow to get more for her.

This second day passes much like the first, with a great deal of boat traffic and many strange beasts that Raven has never seen before. The people are just as interesting. They're all golden brown, but as she looks she realizes that some are western people colored by the sun, and that many of the darkest people have curlier hair and a different cast to the face that's probably Nziola.

They eat a different arrangement of skewered things for lunch, and Raven is very, very glad to see the main island looming ahead as the sun lowers. The food probably won't be much different, but she'll be able to stretch her legs and Charles will be there. They dock beside an incredible number and variety of other crafts. Today is market day on the main island, so there are two Westchester ships here, which must have taken the roundabout route that the ship that brought Raven across the ocean is on now because they're too large for the inside waterways, dozens of Fharra boats of all kinds, and some odd little narrow boats that Kalan says are Obwaarii. Raven is a little nervous, but then she hears Charles's voice in her head.

 _Welcome to the heart of Free Genosha!_ Squinting and not modifying her eyes because people can see, she can just make him out on the shore with a crowd of young Nziola men, a few women, one of whom is much older, and General Lensherr, who looks severe but much more relaxed in the kind of robe and short trousers that Azazel wears. For some reason she's relieved that he and Charles are both wearing shoes, even if Charles in a skirt. She has to assume it's the desire not to be conspicuous. Kalan walks them to the group while the Brightring men and the crowd of boys scurry to arrange everything to be carried up the hill. 

General Lensherr speaks to Kalan at length in Fharra and puts something into her hands, but Raven barely notices, too busy hugging her brother. He's thinner now, with harder muscle, and even with sun lotion he's a sort of light biscuit-y color and the red shows more in his hair, but he's still her Charles, and she holds on for a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

Raven wishes Kalan a fond farewell, and she returns it, saying that Raven and Charles may feel free to come to the Brightring family when they need a favor before sitting down to wait in the boat with the fee General Lensherr gave her while a few of the men come up with them, carrying all the baggage and the two barrels of salt beef in a variety of ingenious slings. The island stretches up into the forested hills and spills out to the sides into terraced gardens. A curious crowd of little naked children runs along beside them, and Irene miraculously produces hard little tree-sugar sweets for them. The usual kind would be long-melted, but these are the little brown drops that keep so well. 

The children are delighted, and Charles laughs. “Now you've done it,” he says, and Raven grins.

“Blame Irene. Foresight again?”

“A mixture of that and practicality, miss,” Irene says. She only runs out of candies at the big clay wall of the compound. Raven already knew from letters not to pack anything white, but she hadn't realized quite how much of the city is actually made of dirt. Still, it's baked hard in the sun and Charles tells her that it's carefully oiled and maintained and hardly smears at all.

_It's actually worse in the dry season, though Erik says everything gets covered in mud during the hard rains. You'll probably be back in Westchester for that, though._

_Thank god,_ Raven mutters into his mind, and he laughs. The Fharra men take little bags of what Charles says is Nziola yellow pigment and is more of a tip than a fee. The plants to make it only grow here and on the very closest of the little islands, so while the Fharra are fond of it, the Nziola invented it and can produce far greater quantities. After they leave, the boys, who are compound servants and will probably be helping her with all kinds of things, take her baggage over to a lovely little secluded spot by a pond where there are more monkeys in the trees. Irene goes with them to be sure that everything is in order, and General Lensherr officially welcomes her before going off to finish looking over the court records he left to accompany Charles.

Three women stay with them, two girls only a bit older than Raven and one woman who could be her grandmother. The girls smile shyly and all three bow. Raven curtsies to them, and Charles smiles. “Raven, may I give you my Nziola?” He always asks permission to use his telepathy on her, and she knows he can fell how much she appreciates that. She gets no real privacy at home or at school, and if Charles didn't leave her alone in her own head, she doesn't know what she would do, but being able to do this is incredibly convenient. Raven nods, and there's just a little ripple inside her head and suddenly she's hearing Nziola but knows that the old lady just said, “Can you understand us now, Raven?”

“I can,” she says, and they tell her their names. The old lady is Azwai, and the girls are Soam and Daa. All three are from the hills and speak with what Raven knows now is an Obwaarii-tinged accent. Like so many people here, they are an adoptive family, Azwai looking after Soam and Daa with all the love she feels for the three children she bore, all of them gone now. Charles flashes this information to Raven so she won't accidentally say anything unkind, and then excuses himself to bathe, since as usual, he has managed to get ink all over himself.

Raven could do with a bath of her own, and her companions take her to the part of the stream where the compound's women bathe, stopping to get a fresh dress from Irene and to let Raven look at her accommodations. The house is very small, of course, but good. Staves have been driven into the hard earth in a generous circle, and the walls woven of some kind of withe. It makes her feel a bit like a snake in a basket, but it's a large basket with two nice low beds and curtain to draw to divide the room, as well as a fire pit and a low table in the center. Irene has already arranged all the bags and trunks, and has set up the one that unfolds into a vanity that Mother gave Raven two birthdays ago.

Soam and Daa seem fascinated with Irene, and with the basket of bathing things she brings along. Azwai tells them that a compound this size should have its own bath house, but that they've had no time to build one, and sighs for the one her childhood village had. As far as Raven is concerned, the stream is lovely. She hadn't realized how much salt was on her skin before, and happily bathes it away in cool water inside the modesty screen. It's a portable frame with a heavy pink curtain, and the strong sunlight glows through it like a rose petal. Raven can tell that the women think it's very strange, but they're well-mannered and happily chatter to her as Irene passes her her sponge and nailbrush and other accouterments in turn.

By the time Raven is done there's hardly any light to see by, so she modifies her eyes to get into her dress without stumbling while Irene gathers the things, hanging the wet curtain in the trees to be retrieved later. After all, Irene doesn't care how dark it gets. Once Raven sees the red glow of the central fire, she returns her eyes to their usual blue and finds Charles in the circle, Irene and their guides sitting near her. He grins and puts an arm around her.

“Good to have you here, sis.”

“It's nice to not be on a boat,” she says, and he laughs before turning to a servant girl and thanking her for a bowl of rich chicken soup. Raven does the same, and lets Charles tell her all about the ingredients as she eats.


	6. Chapter 6

Fascinated as Raven is by everything around her, she's also exhausted, leaning on Irene on the way back to their basket. There's actually a slight chill with night, but nothing worth building a fire for. Irene gets Raven's hair plaited quickly and they both crawl into bed, Raven barely awake long enough to wish Irene a good night and to make sure that Charles hadn't forgotten to give her his Nziola over dinner.

The next morning Raven wakes to the sound of rain pattering on the palm-frond roof. The boys who built it knew their work, though, and not a drop leaks through. Irene is humming softly to herself, laying out a fresh shift and one of Raven's lighter dresses because this rain carries almost no chill with it. Raven wishes her a good morning, and soon she's dressed and sitting under a leaf awning by the fire. Almost everyone else just lets the rain roll off of them like horses, but Azwai has a sort of leaf parasol, as do certain other aged or frail members of the group. Irene shares with Raven, and they breakfast on boiled eggs and strange, sticky rice with some kind of fish and chili sauce on it.

“It's the local product,” Charles tells her, settling beside her. “They grow the Wakanda sort here and the Fharra buy it from the source, but this is what grows best.”

“I think the sauce makes it a little too slippery, but it tastes good,” Raven says, and Irene murmurs that she is enjoying her meal very much, thank you, Mr. Xavier. She's so quiet and correct in her grey dress. Raven's is pale yellow, colored with just a bit of the Nziola dye, and she can feel the servant girls watching her. Apparently only a few women aren't expected to help with the cooking and the serving, and it makes her feel a bit odd.

The meal is soon over, though, and Charles has the day off to show her around. Irene is included in this deal, and takes only a minute or two to straighten up their little basket-house before taking Raven's arm as she does in unfamiliar territory, her cane in her other hand to help her learn it. And to bludgeon anyone who threatens Raven in any way, something a nasty man on the street in Westchester had learned the hard way last year.

First they do the full circuit of their compound, which Charles says is like its own tiny village. As such it has quarters for male and female staff (grown children in a family compound,) as well as a central building like a chief's house in a small village, the individual houses of a few people like General Lensherr, the office of the scribes, and a large communal kitchen where she finds Azwai peeling a bucketful of some kind of root. She nods to them from her seat, and tells them about the mash she'll be making out of them. Soam and Da are apparently out with the scribes, collecting eggs.

The other girls of the compound are are emboldened by seeing her talking with Azwai, and one by one they dip out of their tasks for a moment to come greet her. They're nice girls, even if she knows she won't remember all of their names, and they politely take the small hair ornaments Irene gives them with both hands and a little bow. They're the clip style, with little Westchester animal designs on them, butterflies and wolves and serpents. Raven is a little worried about giving someone an inappropriate image and causing bad feeling, since at least some of the tribes have animal patrons as part of their identities, but these seem to go over well. Raven hadn't been positive they would work for Genoshan hair types, but now she feels silly since so many of the girls have their hair wrapped, and just put the clip on the edge of the cloth to be purely decorative.

After doling out the hair ornaments and taking their leave, the explore the rest of the village, Charles telling them all about the gardens, goats, chickens, and children they see. Many of them are still very skinny, but Charles tells her that almost none of the children here have dreadful, swollen bellies anymore. In south Westchester it happens when there's pestilence in the cattle and no meat or milk, and here it's being counteracted with eggs. And milk now, the goats fattening up enough to provide again.

“We still have to get more aid to the inner island,” Charles says, “but things are improving.”

Raven smiles. “It's interesting to see you working so hard, Charles.”

He laughs. “Well, it needs doing.”

“It's a good course for you, Mr. Xavier,” Irene says, smiling in her mysterious way.

“Thank you, Irene.” It means a lot whenever Irene alludes to a person's timeline, and Charles knows it.

The women in their yards nod to Charles, some pounding millet and others mending clothes, a few preparing for lunch. They meet Soam and Da making their way back to the compound with baskets of eggs, a tall Fharra man walking with them. It seems to Raven like he ought to haul the baskets, but the girls don't seem to be having any trouble and are delighted to get hair ornaments of their own. The man's name is Shaan, and he's one of the senior scribes and talks to Charles for a tiresomely long time about chickens.

At long last they can part ways, continuing down to the shore where there are a few Fharra boats offering desultory trade, and one Westchester ship determined to get its eels sold off. The skies clear a bit, and Raven slips out of her shoes to stand ankle deep in the blue-green sea, gazing out at the islands.


	7. Chapter 7

They return to the compound just ahead of the hottest part of the day, and duck into the kitchen to avoid the sudden, pounding rain. There's a western man there about Charles's age, and he nods to them, holding a mug of what turns out to be a cool, bittersweet chocolate drink when the women pour some for them.

“This is Alex,” Charles says. “He helps maintain the compound and runs errands.”

“Not very manly,” Alex says, “but I don't want to go out to the gardens when I have my brother to look out for.”

“Oh, is he the one in the visor? Charles wrote me about having it made.”

“He is, and it's a big help, but I still like to be close enough to know in a minute if anything happens to him. Other kids have mothers to watch them, you know? Not that Mrs. Jewelbird isn't great.”

Raven nods. “I was so glad when Charles went to stay with Lady Frost. I knew _she_ would actually take care of him while I was at school. This chocolate is amazing,” she adds, trying not to guzzle it too quickly.

“Yeah,” Alex says. “It's even made with cow's milk.”

“There's more available now that the goats are well-fed again,” Azwai adds. Outside the rain pummels down with hardly any space between the drops, and the women talk about the weather and their aches and pains, the doings of children and of lovers and a few husbands outside the compound.

The rain doesn't let up at all, and the women begin packing food into baskets and gourds to take it from house to house. Raven stays in the kitchen with Charles and Irene, sipping her chocolate, and General Lensherr comes bursting through the rain to join them. He really is beautiful, in the kind of feral, masculine way that's out of fashion at home. His smile is all teeth and makes him look demented, but it's an endearing madness and Charles embraces him as the women giggle at them.

“Getting used to the rain?” Erik asks Raven, still holding Charles's hand.

“Maybe,” she says, “but I think it'll be a process.”

He laughs, and goes to check on the barrels of salted beef and a few other imports, and talks to the women about compound business and checks the roof for leaks and is otherwise so industrious that he's a little exhausting to be around. She can see why Charles loves him, though. As he leaves, he tells the head cook to serve some of the salt beef this evening. She agrees only to grimace after he leaves and admit that she has no idea how to cook strange preserved western meats.

Charles and Irene are no help, but school food is cheap food, and Raven has eaten more salt beef in the past few years than in her entire life before. The women are only a little surprised when she sends Irene to get her big plain pinafore and asks one of them to show her how to tie her hair out of her way. The Nziola regard a woman who cannot cook as unnatural, regardless of her wealth, status, or leisure, and the Obwaarii and Fharra cooks expect any girl to pick up a least a bit of knowledge. She shows them how to soak the meat in water for a little while to take some of the salt off, and then blot it in wheat flour and fry it in oil. They have to go light on the oil, since it's expensive, but the test piece comes out crisp and brown, and everyone eats her little bite and pronounces it a success.

Raven is very glad to be helpful, and stays in the kitchen until the small children and the women have been fed. She has only nibbled a little, wanting to eat with Charles, who has scampered off to do some scribing. She excuses herself and goes to find him. Irene had run out earlier in a borrowed leaf cloak to get their umbrellas, so they can walk in a leisurely manner to the scribes's building to collect him and from there toward Erik's house.

“Wait,” Charles says, cocking his head like he's listening for something. “Erik is in the main hall, let's go see if they're done yet.”

The main hall is a huge building, made of oiled mud and a circle of enormous tree trunks. The exposed ones on the exterior wall are covered with a dizzying array of complex images, and Raven stops to look at them, vowing to take a rubbing for her friends before she leaves. Up close she can see a kind of theme to each log, and very different designs between one and the next.

“Those are Nziola designs,” Charles says, pointing to the geometric jumble of one log, “and these are Fharra,” he says, gesturing to another, which reminds Raven of their beading patterns, “and this Obwarrii,” he says, indicating a third that is covered with designs that look like animals and trees. “There are also other logs decorated by the smaller tribes, and one put up to honor the Small People for their help in the war.” Charles has mentioned the Small People in letters, and more than anything Raven wants to see one. She's sure they can't all be dead, not if they're half as clever as the histories say. That tree is on the other side of the hall, though, so for now she examines the Obwaarii one, fascinated by the style. It's representational but minimalist, animals distinguished mostly by size and features like ears and tails, and trees and vines just suggested by artful arrangements of straight and wavy lines.

“I'll have to come back when there isn't a lake falling on our heads,” Raven says, and Charles laughs, leading them inside.


	8. Chapter 8

The hall is very dim inside, but also blessedly quiet, the thicker roof blocking most of the pattering of the rain. Raven can't actually see it, the dimness relieved only by a few torches sunk into the clay portions of the wall. There is an enormous bench all around the edge, occupied by a small crowd of what look like Obwaarii people, leaf cloaks draped everywhere along with neat little bundles that are probably packed lunches or something. In the center of the circle is a raised platform, also circular and lit much more brightly with oil lanterns and more torches. It's a bit like an old-fashioned Westchester theatre, but Charles has already told Raven that it functions more like a court. There's a bench one edge of the platform, and Erik is sitting on it with Talak, and an old man and old woman who Charles doesn't know. Standing before them is a very dark middle-aged man holding a spear, who gestures as if to say that he is speaking for the witnesses, and seems to be asking for something. 

The proceedings today are in Obwaarii, which Charles is just learning and Raven has barely heard, and they find a spot on the bench both out of respect and so Charles can be still and use his powers to see what's going on. The crowd looks over at them, but immediately turns back to the center, which Raven is glad of. Above their heads, log chunks stick out of the wall, smaller sticks beside them to make what most Genoshan buildings use in instead of stairs. Charles smiles when he sees her looking up at them, and says, _That's for crowd overflow,_ sending an image of a much more crowded hall, young men and older children clambering up to sit on the log ends. It sounds like a lot fun to Raven, and she sighs internally because she can tell it's yet another thing girls nearly old enough to be married aren't allowed to do.

 _He's their village's lead hunter,_ Charles says, eyes a little hazy. _He's saying that they must be allowed to kill two Sacred Birds, that it's bad enough that the trainee hunters can't learn to work alone, but that there are six young men marrying, and that it will be shameful if they can't blood themselves and their brides properly at the ceremony._ Raven shudders at the idea, but has to sympathize. No Westchester girl wants a skimpy wedding, however poor the families involved might be. They have come in at the end of the argument, apparently, because the man concludes, thumping the butt of the spear on the floor in a grand and ritualistic sort of way. It makes Raven think Westchester's heavy stamps, brought down with an official thud.

Erik stands and bows in return, saying something in Obwaarii that Charles lets her know is basically, “Thank you, we will now consider the evidence.”

The man hops down from the platform and a boy with a box takes his place, bowing deeply and handing it to Erik. They confer too quietly to hear, but hold up the various things in the box so everyone knows that they have been seen. There's a selection of enormous brown feathers, many bits of eggshell, and a piece of bark with writing on it. Raven helps Charles describe them for Irene, and he lets both of them know that the feathers and egg shell are from the Sacred Birds, and that the bark is a list of confirmed nesting sites. The old man and woman are apparently respected Obwaarii elders, selected from other villages for greater impartiality

After a long while in conference, during which the villagers wait patiently, the old Obwaarii woman claps her hands and announces the judgment. The villagers will be allowed to kill their birds, but only if they can find two males. Eggs are laid late in the wet season, but the population is still too low to risk any of the hens. Raven doesn't need Charles's telepathy to see that the verdict is considered fair, and Talak calls a word that Charles translates as, 'it is finished.'

The timing is very good, because just as Erik is helping the elders down a set of little steps hidden behind the bench, Rima, one of the kitchen girls comes in and calls that dinner is ready. Raven wonders why they don't just serve it in here, but when she files out with the rest she sees that the rain has eased to the point that it's barely more than mist. They settle under the awnings in the central courtyard for bowls of that sticky local rice and crisp pieces of salt beef. There's more powdered chili in the flour on this batch, but it's not too hot, and there are slices of yet another fruit Raven has never seen before. Charles tells her all about it as Irene learns some Obwaarii from the old woman, and it's only after dinner that Raven learns that they're invited to the wedding. It's one wedding, since even before the birds's numbers had dwindled, one whole bird for one man and a woman or two had been considered unspeakably profligate.

Raven can hardly contain herself, and once she's back in her little house she doesn't bother, rolling back and forth on her bed and squealing as Irene gets out the hair brush, the face cream, and all the other stuff that Miss Xavier needs for the night.

“You know travel through the jungle will be dangerous,” she says, gesturing for Raven to sit up properly, which she does, sticking her tongue out at Irene.

“Yeah, and that's why I want to do it!”


	9. Chapter 9

The three weeks until the wedding would seem unbearably long if Raven wasn't doing something new every day, like eating raw fish and learning about the most common Fharra tattoo patterns from merchants and sailors. Irene spends all day running after her, trying to keep her from being unchaperoned in low company. It's not so bad, since Irene doesn't do that silly thing where people act as if a young girl associating with a prostitute will make her want no other career. Raven has heard of countries where prostitution is considered utterly filthy and shameful, but Genosha is too practical for that. The temple of the earth goddess has three women who serve the temple that way, and they know a lot of very interesting stories. They also have delicious chocolate candies that Raven enjoys very much, after getting over how they're shaped to resemble vulvae. Even the temples of the She-Wolf usually use flower symbolism back home, but confectionery is confectionery.

It turns out to be a very good thing that she gets to know these priestesses, because it makes it much less frightening when her blood comes and they surround her hut in the night. Charles has warned her that the locals will find out and seclude her, and that she might be faced with the ceremony for a girl's first time. In some parts of Wakanda they cut girls in some terrible way, but here she'll just be spirited away to the temple and decorated before being taken back to the moon house. As they trot through the woods, the youngest priestess, Shanah, tips up her elaborate monster mask, and winks at Raven. Irene gamely trots along, on the grounds that she must stay with Raven and that her own blood is sure to come only a day or so later, with all the time they spend together.

When they reach the temple, there's an incredibly old woman there. The main part of the temple is a circle, like the main hall back at the compound, and it's always dark there, with a low fire. Now the fire is burning green, and the old woman is sitting close beside it. She only has one leg, and her features are almost buried in wrinkles. Raven feels a child's terror of her, but reminds herself to be brave, and that her hosts will not hurt her.

Sure enough, the old woman just sings a song over her in Nziola, about how she must be strong and resolute, that evil spirits long for pure young girls, and that Raven must be a quiet warrior against them. It's a pretty song, even if the descriptions of evil spirits are scary, and once that part is over she asks Raven a few questions, about what she knows and what she has done and witnessed in her young life as a woman, and then speaks a blessing for her health, fortune, and fertility, and lets the others put anklets on her and paint some kind of mark on her brow.

They rush back to the compound after that, and go to the moon house, which turns out to be really interesting inside. There are benches to recline on, and a great many scrolls, as well as what looks like supplies to do beadwork. Here the women remove their masks and explain the rules. Raven must stay here and not let the sun touch her skin, and that anything she makes can be purified along with her when she comes out for general use.

“Because Irene is like your sister and will probably follow you soon, she can stay here. Irene, how old are you?”

“Eighteen years, ma'am.”

“You're just young enough to need your own blessing,” she says, and Irene curtseys to her.

“So I stay here, I make things and listen to songs and stories, and I may speak to a man if he is purified before and after and stands with his back to the window while we talk?”

“Yes,” Beda says. She's the oldest of the three, an imposing and stern-faced woman. “Also you must not eat any meat but eggs.”

“Which is just as well,” Shanah says, “since that's what we have the most of, anyway.”

For the moment Raven just wants to go to bed, and Irene helps her to get comfortable on one of the benches, which are covered in wildcat hides, because wildcats are fierce and protective mothers.

Sure enough, Irene wakes up with her blood, and that night they'll be doing the entire thing over again. For now they get cleaned up, change their rags, and eat gourd porridge boiled eggs with salt while the priestesses tell them the story of Mother Earth, which is never told to men in its entirety. How she was born from the mud, and helped to make the world what it is today. How she must be honored and coaxed into letting the men grow their crops, and that she bled to bring the first people into the world, and bled to feed her sacred cats. Each woman's blood is her renewed sacrifice to the world, and a badge of honor that makes her both vulnerable, and important. By the lamplight Raven can see that her anklets are made of blood-red beads, which makes sense, considering.

After all this serious matter, the conversation turns very bawdy as Raven works on a beaded belt for Mother, since it's an easy project for a beginner. The simplest of the geometrical Nziola patterns are pretty easy, and Raven carefully beads tiny red and blue squares onto the pale leather while Irene learns a hand-weaving technique that can be more easily done by touch. She can bead, but she likes to be at her most awake for it.

During lunch, Charles comes and stands with his back to the window, smelling of sacred smoke as he asks Raven how she's doing. It's a bit dull, doing lady-tasks by lamplight, but as the rain comes thundering down, almost drowning out the latter half of their conversation, Raven has to conceded that it's probably not much better outdoors.

Thankfully, it's not raining when they have to go to the temple after dark, squelching down the path to hear the same song and the same blessing. Raven doesn't have to go, but wants to be moral support for Irene. When it's over and they get back to the house, it's nice to see the mark for herself, and to be able to describe it for Irene.

“It's kind of a V-shape,” Raven says, when they're bedding down for the night. “A red V, with a yellow spot inside it and a red spot inside that.”

“I think the priestesses will be explaining it tomorrow,” Irene says, yawning as Shanah snuffs the lamp.


	10. Chapter 10

Irene is right, because the next morning the priestesses shake them awake, because calling is useless with the rain so loud on the roof. It's more boiled eggs, of course, with fried gourd chunks. While they eat, the priestesses tell them about their marks, that the V-shape is a woman's body, the yellow is her energy, and the innermost red dot is herself, a microcosm of the whole universe. It's a little dizzying to think about, and Raven is glad when they move on to general advice for young women, some of which she has gotten from her mother and from older friends already.

Still, it's fascinating to hear these things through a Genoshan filter. Not answering a young man's letter too quickly or too forwardly becomes responding to the call of a courting flute with measured slowness and grace, while dropping a small object to see if a man is paying enough attention to retrieve it for you doesn't have as much utility in a place where women are often carrying large loads, and dropping anything would be a catastrophe. Also, paint on a Westchester girl Raven's age is scandalous, where the priestesses advise them to find the colors and patterns that work best for them, no matter what the other girls might be wearing in any given season.

There are also anatomy lessons, with careful drawings of how a woman is made, and a great deal of advice on sexuality, fertility, and what to eat to keep balanced. The herbs are different here, of course, and Raven can see Irene taking especial note of the ones that ease cramps and the ones that bring them on. Raven has never had any need for the latter, but she's still young, after all.

They finish their time in the house pleasantly enough. The dullness is relieved by a young mother and her little boy, big enough to toddle along a bit but still nursing, and therefore allowed in the moonhouse. Raven has seen her around the compound, but with such a small child, her duties are light, particularly because he's a posthumous child, his father killed in the last spasms of the revolution. Shaa would have been his first wife, so there are no widow-sisters to help her, either. She and the child are healthy and whole, though, and she says she's grateful for it. She's a Fharra by blood, with dazzling tattoos, many more than the priestesses have. 

Among the Nziola, tattoos are for decoration, and to commemorate life events such as entering one of the secret societies the women have here, or upon the birth of a child, or the death of a mother or husband. Shaa has all of these, and many more, her whole genealogy and the legends of her clan inked into her skin. It's beautiful, but Raven can't imagine sitting still to be poked with a needle that many times. Before she really knows what she's doing, she's showing the others her real skin, her focus on her pale, yellow-haired form completely broken by thinking so much about tattooing. They shout and laugh at her sudden transformation, and the little boy claps his hands and tries to spin around, falling down instead and not minding.

“How lovely!” Shanah says, coming closer and fingering Raven's red hair. “I can't wait to see you in the sun!”

“You think no one would mind?”

“My dear, every day we see people maimed by the slavers. Not much that's healthy bothers us.”

Raven keeps this mind as she gets ready for her purification. Irene's cycle is shorter, so they both stop on the same morning, and remain for that day to make certain that they're done. The next morning they can leave at last, giving Shaa their best wishes for herself and her son, and then bathing themselves from tubs of perfumed water and wrapping ceremonial cloths around their shoulder before they step outside, where the ancient lady from the temple has them kneel so that she can wave sacred smoke over them and wipe the marks off. Raven can't help but feel very conspicuous when she takes her cloth off, but Irene holds her hand and if people stare on her way back to her hut, it isn't unfriendly.

Of course Charles squawks at her. He comes over as soon as he hears that she's out of the moon house, and then stares and fusses, because, “Raven, you're not wearing any _clothes!_ ” And it's true, but Raven doesn't need clothes in her real skin, and this way the light doesn't hurt her eyes and the heat doesn't bother her at all.

“The local women go bare-breasted anyway,” she says. “I'll put on a skirt if my hosts ask me to, but I'm tired of using sun lotion and wishing I had smoked glasses when I can just be myself!”

Charles fusses a bit more, but finally has the sense to leave and to come back with the headwoman. The Nziola don't have chiefesses, but the chief's wife is the highest ranking woman in the village, and in a community where none of the leaders have had time to marry yet, the most senior of the female staff takes on that role. She's a stout, matronly lady, and smiles warmly when Irene and Raven curtsey to her.

“Your true skin is very beautiful,” she says, “but your brother is right, it is not meet for you to show your thighs.”

“In that case,” Raven says, “Irene, please get me last spring's school skirt and the scissors.” Her clothes all have paper tags with the color in blindwriting, so it's easy for Irene to dig up the floor-length, blue-grey linen skirt, and the scissors are more her property than Raven's. Raven thanks her and takes both items, cutting off the bottom half of the skirt and putting on the rest. She has done a good job eyeballing the length, and it hits her right below the knee, just like the skirts the Nziola women wear. She gives the rest to the headwoman, who is very glad to get it, and fascinated by the texture of the linen, a very rare textile in the islands.


	11. Chapter 11

Yet another aspect of a girl's first seclusion is a celebratory dinner when she gets out. Raven blushes to have her cycle made so conspicuous, but the women seem so happy for her and the food is so strange and good that she can't worry about it long. She feels a bit guilty about making her impoverished hosts put on a feast, but at least she and Irene are sharing a single occasion, and there's much more to eat in the islands these days. Aside from Westchester aid, the people have simply been let alone to produce. Fallow gardens are busy again, full of the gourds that are the staff of life here, and people have the time and the freedom of movement to find fodder for goats and chickens, and for the women to work their own little gardens, and for the Fharra to fish and the Obwaarii to hunt the smaller game that has started to recover already.

Tonight there's fried salt beef, which is rapidly becoming a delicacy here, and a beautiful green soup made with cow's milk and seaweed, and a big clay jug of salted fish eggs, enchanted to keep its contents cool. There's also the usual gourds and rice, and some dog-sized creature bought from the Obwaarii and slowly roasted through all of last night. It's supposed to be very good for those who have lost blood, so Raven and Irene are served before anyone else. That's a bit embarrassing, but the meat is so rich and dark and delicious that it's hard for Raven to mind.

Charles is of course fascinated by all of this, and the scribes laugh at him for taking notes when he could finally be done writing for the day. He just laughs at them, and reminds them that anything is interesting to a foreigner. He sits close to General Lensherr, who patiently answers his questions about every dish, calling one of the women over any time he doesn't know. Raven is glad to see that everyone is patient with Charles's endless questions, something that always got him into trouble at home. Well, until Lady Frost bought him. Raven wonders how she's doing now, and resolves to write to her at some point.

A sudden puff of smoke makes Raven jump, but it's just Azazel. He turns toward General Lensherr, clearly here to make a report, but stops and stares at Raven, bright eyes wide and tail out straight in that way that Raven has already figured out means that he's surprised.

“And what azure flower is this?” he purrs, tail starting to wave like a cat's does when it's pleased.

“I've decided to continue my tour in my own skin,” Raven says, and he grins at her.

“You prior appearance was lovely, but this is a marked improvement,” he says, and prowls over to General Lensherr to tell him that Fharra boats are on their way in with the Wakanda goods and aid Azazel negotiated for. The general thanks him for his contributions and tells him to sit down and have some fish eggs. He does, and tells Charles about another kind that they serve in his distant homeland. Even though he can be there in the blink of an eye, the stuff is still often beyond his present means.

“I hear that Genoshan dyes are already fashionable in Westchester,” Charles says. “Who knows what we'll be able to afford in a few years?”

“Perhaps,” Azazel says, and General Lensherr sighs, putting an arm around Charles.

“It's good to have some optimism around here,” he says, “but you haven't seen the inner island.”

“It's not so bad anymore, General,” Azwai says, walking around the circle to offer people more soup. It's a rare clear night, so everyone is sitting on stacks of leaves in the courtyard instead of eating in the main hall, which they have to do more and more often.

“Oh?” he says, holding his bowl in both hands the polite Genoshan way, as she refills it.

“You forget all you did there last dry season. It has been a great help.”

“I suppose,” he says. “but the children need meat, and all of the people need healers.”

“The Obwaarii are stubborn,” Azwai says, giving Azazel a generous portion as a new arrival. “The slavers were most brutal to them. But,” she adds, giving Raven and Irene more soup, “that stubbornness makes them strong.”

“You're part Obwaarii, aren't you?”

“Yes,” she says, adjusting her grip on the clay vessel of soup, “my mother married down from the hills. Remind me to tell you some of her stories later,” she adds, and continues her round.

Azwai's invitation proves fortuitous, because the next three days are nothing but rain. Everyone comes to the main hall, where the roof is thick enough for them to hear themselves think. The scribes do paperwork, the women mend and make clothes, the children play counting and guessing games. Raven, Irene, and some of the other girls about their age form a loose circle with Azwai, who tells them Obwaarii stories as they perform their various lady tasks. Raven has already finished Mother's belt, but now she's practicing Westchester embroidery on what she's calling her Genoshan wardrobe, a collection of nearly outgrown school skirts from last spring cut off to Nziola length. 

Irene has made presents of all the extra linen and hemmed the ragged edges for Raven, but the garments are dreary by Genoshan standards, and now she covers a grey one in full-blown pink roses, with delicate leaves and vines in two shades of green. She would be more annoyed at having to do this kind of work again right after being in the moon house, but everyone is cooped in weather like this, and she actually enjoys embroidery. But that almost doesn't matter, because Azwai is telling them about forest gods who go in the guise of men, strong hunters with strange, light eyes, and what happens when their wives pry into their secrets without permission, and about the man who married a tree, and of the Small People, who can make themselves invisible and whose feet never touch the ground. They can see in the dark and have sharp teeth, but will help those who are kind to them, as generous as they are fearsome.

Charles says that none of this is true, but Raven doesn't care, looking forward to their journey into the hills more than ever.


	12. Chapter 12

In Westchester, a lady's forest traveling outfit is a riding habit of some stuff thick enough to stand up to twigs and brambles, with oilcloth and furs added depending on the weather. In Genosha and in her own skin, Raven will be going on foot and wearing a Fharra coat, made from seal gut. The Nziola leaf cloaks are well enough for day to day, but everyone agrees that gut is best for travel. Irene buys two coats from the Fharra. They're expensive, but she's able to talk the price down a bit and then a bit more when she throws in the last of the spare linen.

When the boats arrive, Raven enjoys being dressed like the boatmen, and Charles grins at her, covered in a leaf cloak. Everyone says that it looks like the hard rains are coming early this year, and poor General Lensherr looks a bit anxious as he greets the Wakandas who have come to help. The slavers had mostly been from the Low West, but those taken had been from countless places, including a few coastal Wakandas, to say nothing of Genosha being an ancient trading partner. 

King T'Challa has been very generous indeed, sending cryomancers, preserved meat, a whole cadre of his best healers, and some wide-eyed agricultural specialists from the small islands, who never expected in the whole of their lives to have a mission from the king. But the small islands are the part of Wakanda most like Genosha, and so they're here to see how much more the gardens can produce.

All of these people have to be fed and lodged, of course, and Charles is very busy in making inventories and recording itineraries, while Azwai, Soam, and Daa all plunge into cooking and fetching extra bedding. Raven and Irene find work in the kitchen, and if collecting peelings for the chickens isn't all that interesting, it's better than having nothing to do at all. Irene sits and stirs a kettle of gourd mash as the rain hammers on the roof and the women yell and sing above it, many headcloths decorated with a glittering Westchester hair clip.

Dinner is good that night, and Charles is full of fascinating information from the Wakandas. Some of the healers work with people's minds, and there are others that know all about old scars and how they pull at skin and nerves, and how to ease that pain. Still others know to best start feeding a starving child again, and tricks for pulling mothers and babies through a hard birth.

“We'll be able to do so much good in the hills, Raven,” he says, eyes shining, and she grins at him, delighted in that fact and in her brother's sense of purpose.

“I think it's good for you that you're here, and good for here that you're you,” she says, and he laughs.

“I do what I can to help.”

The next few days are a flurry of activity, as the Wakandas decide which of them will stay behind to help the locals while most of the group goes inland with General Lensherr. Once they decide, he calls everyone who will be going together, including Raven and Irene, and gives them some survival advice before giving the floor to an old Obwaarii man, who goes into more depth. Raven can only hope they won't need to know half of this stuff, but does her best to memorize which plants are poisonous and what do if a tree-cat attacks her. Charles listens just as attentively, one of the other scribes taking the record.

Later on, Charles makes a copy of the record for Raven to go over and over in the last two days before they set off. At least the weather eases over that time, driving rains turning back into the gentle mists and isolated cloudbursts that are more typical for this time of year. Irene packs as lightly as she can. The terrain is so rough and space at such a premium that the horse is almost unknown in Genosha, and their things will be carried by a big, stout girl who's willing to do it for three meals a day during the trip, a chance to see her mother, and a payment of five helices and half a dozen eggs upon their return. Her name is Baalia, and when it's time for her to take up the their pack she nods thoughtfully, and thanks Irene for making it such a balanced load.

It's a bright, sunny morning, the rains completely suspended for the moment, and they take their leave of the compound to march up into the steaming green jungle. Baalia hums as she walks, climbing the steep hillside as though she will never tire. Raven follows her, holding Irene's hand the way she does on even paths and in unfamiliar places. 

General Lensherr continually ranges ahead, so Charles stays by Raven and Irene, helping Raven to describe the fantastic colors and shapes of birds and flowers and cunning terraced gardens. There are also rice paddies, like little ornamental ponds at this point in the season. The rice won't be planted until long after Raven leaves, when the ferocious storms of the latter half of the rainy season are mostly done with.

There are massive clouds of insects, but thanks to an Obwaarii preparation and a few magical amulets, they don't bother the group much. Baalia mentions that some are good to eat, and talks about gathering them with her mother near the end of the war, when there was almost no food and constant danger.

“It's good to just walk in the forest again,” she says, leading the way over another hilltop, “without worrying so much.”

“I would imagine so!” Raven says. “I'm glad you and your mother made it through.”

Baalia thanks her, and tells them a bit about her mother, whose home village is near the very end of their tour, but may visit her brother and thereby meet them halfway.


	13. Chapter 13

The journey onward and upward is fascinating for Raven. Not only is this wet, broad-leafed forest completely new to her, but so are all the little things of Obwaarii culture. Charles has written to her about the spirit flags and about the elevated place of good hunters in Obwaarii society, but he hasn't been truly immersed in it before, either.

Like the Fharra, the Obwaarii decorate their skin, but they do it with scars instead of tattooing. Most of them are so dark tattooing wouldn't even show up, and Raven can't help but be fascinated by their beauty. The scarring is related to accomplishments, so older people tend to have more, wearing them proudly alongside missing eyes, broken teeth, and amputated fingers, hands, and feet. Where Nziola women sort of slide their eyes to the side around men they're not related to, the Obwaarii look straight out at the world through those dark, tilted eyes that make Raven think of deer.

The biggest and, as far as Raven is concerned, the best difference between the Obwarrii and the Nziola is that Obwaarii pride works differently. Where the Nziola are stubborn and proud in a way that can make it very hard to help them, the Obwaarii see refusing to take anything offered for one's dependents as a great shame. They're not greedy, but no one is trying to lie and say that they have enough to eat when they don't. After hearing about all the elaborate steps involved in getting Nziola who aren't completely desperate to accept aid, it's very nice to deal with people who almost never hide infirmity or poverty of any kind. 

On the other hand, it does get awkward when chieftains bow their heads to the earth in gratitude. To General Lensherr's immense credit, he just graciously raises them up and says something very pretty in Obwaarii every time. He's good with the many small chieftains out here, but seems most at ease with the children. They bring up a warm, gentle side of him that Raven would never have suspected without Charles's contentment here.

Today they're in the center of another tiny Obwaarii village, and all the children are gathered to see the Wakanda healers, the older ones standing as politely and quietly as they can manage, their silence broken by giggles and their stillness by dancelike little hops. They're pretty children, even if some of them are almost skeletal. Beside them are mostly their mothers, fathers all out doing what small hunting they can, catching frogs and spearing fish. A few of the fathers are here as well, widowers or weavers, one of the only respectable things for an Obwaarii man to be aside from hunter.

"You are a skinny one, aren't you?" General Lensherr coos to the baby in his arms, gentle as the soft rain on the woven leaf canopy overhead. The baby is very thin, but it has bright eyes, healthy skin, and a good, strong grip on the General's thumb. "Never mind," the General tells it, "we'll find a way to fatten you up." The baby gurgles, and its nervous young mother smiles for the first time since she arrived. Her small and pretty breasts are covered in vicious whip scars, and one of the female healers is carefully touching them, frowning in concern. She says something in her own language, then switches to Obwaarii.

"Scars go deep," she says. "Hurt the... milk bed?" It must be a calque of a Wakanda term, but it's easy to understand. 

All this time that General Lensherr has been holding babies and coaxing children to be brave when the Wakandas have to pierce their skin to check their blood for disease and malnutrition, Raven has been keeping count of the enchanted blankets, reporting it to Charles whenever he comes by, scribbling on a broad leaf with a short stick, but now she quietly passes the task to Irene, pulling the hood of her coat down to keep the rain out of her eyes and slipping outside. She doesn't go far, just into the trees by the moon house, where she stands and cries in the rain to think of slaves entrusted to the care of people who would beat a girl not much older than Raven until she couldn't suckle her child properly.

Raven is expecting Charles to eventually feel her mood without even meaning to and so come to fetch her, but instead it's General Lensherr who insinuates himself into the trees beside her. He doesn't say anything for a while they watch raindrops roll off of the leaves.

"Are you done?" General Lensherr asks at last, and Raven nods. He takes her hand the same way Charles would.

"Is Charles fussing?" Raven asks, rubbing at her eyes.

"Not too much," General Lensherr says, "but of course he knew you were upset, it's obvious without telepathy. Come and watch the child eat, you'll feel better." He speaks with the tone of long experience, and sure enough, Raven does feel better when they make their way back, and she can see the baby latched onto one of the healers, who has been taking potions to make milk without having a baby of her own just for moments like this. The child's mother leans on her as another healer examines the scars to see what can be done by fleshworking.

"He was confused," the nursing healer says, laughing as the baby continues to feed, skinny little sides heaving with the effort, "but now he knows."

The baby makes a little snuffling noise, and his mother smiles, a beautiful, beaming smile. Raven can't help but smile back, and soon she's watching the healer mix a potion, paying close attention so that she can help with it later.


End file.
